Posted on 07/29/2006 6:27:04 AM PDT by Rodney King
HIV can avoid the powerful drugs that sufferers take to destroy it by hiding in their guts, scientists have discovered.
The scientists found that the virus that causes Aids took hold in intestinal tissue of patients receiving antiretroviral therapy (ARV). There it continued to replicate and suppress the immune system even though blood samples showed that the drugs were working.
The scientists from California University said that results of their three-year study, published in the Journal of Virology, showed HIV treatments needed re-evaluation.
Professor Satya Dandekar, who led the study, said that, while ARV could be quite successful in reducing HIV’s presence in the blood, the virus still thrived. “The real battle between the virus and exposed individuals is happening in the gut immediately after viral infection,” she said. “We need to be focusing our efforts on improving treatment of gut mucosa, where massive destruction of immune cells is occurring.”
Professor Dandekar, head of the university’s department of medical microbiology and immunology, said that gut-associated lymphoid tissue accounted for 70 per cent of the body’s immune system, and that restoring its function was crucial to destroying the virus.
The study suggests that earlier ARV and the use of anti-inflammatory drugs could achieve this. It also urges gut biopsies on all patients receiving ARV as a way of monitoring their condition.
“We found a substantial delay in the time that it takes to restore the gut mucosal immune system in those with chronic infections,” Professor Dandekar said. “In these patients the gut acted as a viral reservoir that keeps us from ridding patients of the virus.”
Doctors have long relied on measuring HIV’s presence in the blood and T-cell counts. T-cells, also called T-helper cells, organise the immune system’s fight against viruses. However, their numbers are reduced when HIV enters the body, leaving carriers vulnerable to infection.
Earlier research by Professor Dandekar and her team supports the claim that patients with high numbers of T-cells in their gut tissue were likely to live longer.
Thomas Prindiville, the study’s co-author, said that starting treatment earlier significantly improved the chances of restoring immune function.
“If we are able to restore the gut's immune response, the patient will be more likely to clear the virus,” Professor Prindiville said. “You can’t treat any infectious disease without the help of the immune system.”
The scientists followed ten patients receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy, known as HAART. Three of the patients were treated within six weeks of finding out they were HIV positive.
It knows exactly the nature of its host, and where it might hide and still find new people to transmit to.
This will be good news to the "bug chasers" (I think that's the term I saw used) who seek out the virus so that they,too,can become a member of the "fraternity".
Proof positive that AIDs was designed by rich industrialists in order to eliminate the prolitariate...
[/sarcasm]
Bingo! Rodney wins the prize.
Answer seems obvious to me. Give the drugs by suppositories. Should be no problem with this group.
the pathalogical facts.
Go against the biological, physiological make up of an organism and devastation sets in in an attempt to destroy or abort the unnatural, compromised entity?
i.e. - You fool with Mother Nature at your peril
along with some good colonics?
This might, at least, help spare the innocents who contract the disease - like thru' blood transfusions - and wont be subject to continued reinfection through their own death-style
HIV hides itself in the intestines to beat drugs
Uh, do I want to know how it got THERE?
"But I was born to stick my wiener in shiite."
"HIV hides itself ..."
How silly, assigning agency to a virus. What they mean is that the drugs don't kill or suppress the pathogens found in the intestines.
Not before breakfast.
Well, not AFTER you eat, either.
Well, = ahmmm, No, I guess you don't want to know
Except that it will poison their hamsters.
There's over 20 feet of intestine in a typical human. I don't think suppositories are going to be a great delivery system.
Is HIV actually killing people anymore? I don't seem to hear much wailing from the left about this disease anymore.
I think this is listable.
"Uh, do I want to know how it got THERE?"
You mean by suggesting that's where the virus entered the body?
is this the "duh' response of the day
In other words, don't go in through the out door.
Do you "duh" have to ask?
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